Little Flower
by evizyt
Summary: "Little Flower is a child's nickname," I whine. "You are a child," Quil replies. But children don't lie awake at night, sweating beyond what's merited by the temperature, dreaming about warm hands sliding over—I cut off that line of thinking, but it is too late. The air crackles with heat and tension and something else besides, and I feel as if I am drowning, drowning in Quil.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: I can't believe I'm doing this, but I'm writing a Twilight Fic. It's tiny, I swear, it's going to be short. But for some reason I was daydreaming about Quil and Claire the other day, and decided that their story needed a bit of attention. I'm working an absolutely dead-end job for the summer and can't wait for college to start again. So guess what I'm doing in my cubicle instead of nothing? This, and my original manuscript, which still needs a lot more work... Anyways, enjoy!

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**Little Flower**

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The memory begins with his eyes. I should know; I relive it every time I see him.

As close as I can determine, it's my first memory. I have just fallen—scraped a knee, banged an elbow, tripped on a root: the details are no longer important. And then he is there. He was always there.

He lifts me up, hands strong and firm around my four-year-old distended belly. Even now, I remember the heat seeping from his hands to my ribcage. It's a comforting, warm sort of heat, not burning or scary.

He lifts me easily, face and arms barely registering any strain. "What's the matter, little flower?" He asks. But I barely hear, because my thoughts are consumed by his eyes. They are large and warm and brown, so deep that already, at four, I feel an immense sense of vertigo. Everything seems to spin: possibly it is the abrupt change of situation, the smooth ride in his arms, perhaps it is the tumble itself, probably I am four and disoriented, and it is difficult to focus. But his eyes remain clear, that patient, penetrating brown that I can never excise from my memory.

They are filled with love.

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"Hey, Little Flower!" Even without the nickname, I would recognize his voice immediately. Quil is knocking on the front door.

I have begun to hate that nickname, as it signifies everything that isn't.

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Quil has been everything to me. A father, a brother, a cousin. He has always been there, from that first fall to more recent teenager catastrophes.

My sophomore year of highschool I was chasing Olivia, my younger sister around the house. (How far away that seems now, four years ago). She had stolen my favorite dress, and I was livid. Livid for Livvy, ironically, but as I chased her around the house screaming bloody murder, no lucid thought crossed my mind. I was going to exact a price in blood, preferably hers, although side injuries to myself were also a realistic possibility. I could always find a sympathetic ear in Quil, who would help me bandage my scratches, pat the bruises, and snicker sympathetically at the bite marks.

Livvy, naturally, headed for out parent's room, the only bedroom in the house that had a lock. She bolted up the slick, wooden stairs, and I followed full-tilt. It was only a matter of time that my rage-clouded mind miscalculated a step. I slipped and fell, cracking my head open on one of the stairs on my way down.

Hardly able to believe her good fortune, Livvy locked the door and chortled to herself, unaware of my accident. I was completely unconscious, so I remember none of the next bit. But somehow Quil was there, and I got to the hospital.

The next thing I remember, I'm waking up in a hospital bed with a staple in my skull and Quil looking at me with an intensity that I last remember seeing when I was four. His eyes are drinking me in, as he stares at me as though I've arisen from the dead.

I laugh weakly. "I was never going to die, you know." He doesn't ask what I'm referencing. Quil and I have never needed clarifications like that. We know each other too well for normal social boundaries. \

He stands, saying nothing, but his eyes still burn. He takes my hand, pressing it into his face as though he intends almost to eat it. Quil has never touched me like this before, and I have no idea how to react. We roughhouse and play, and he will frequently muss my hair. But he has never held my hand, or embraced me in any way. There is a wall between us that I don't understand, and this is the first time he has ever broken it.

The strange look on his eyes and the grim set of his face scare me, and I tremble.

He feels the tremor, even as he squeezes my hand a little too hard, the pressure almost crushing. "Oh, Claire," he breathes, and it is the first time he has ever called me by my given name. The words run over me, and I shiver again, although for a different reason.

We are silent, as there is nothing more to say. When he releases my hand and looks at me again, the strange set of his face is gone, and the mischievous glint has once more returned to his eyes. My parents and sister rush in, then, swarming me with tears, exclamations, and kisses. Quil stands in the background, watching, his eyes warm.

But that haunted look remains in my mind's eye. I itemize it, placing the memory along with many others of Quil.

It is a look that speaks of decades of love.

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"Little Flower?" Quil's voice, questioning, draws me back to the present. I am home for the summer, having finished two-year nursing school and ready to apply for jobs in Seattle.

"Porch!" I call. He knows where it is. Things are different between us now—things can never be as they were, and I find myself hoping that he will walk slowly.

I shift on the rough wood of the porch, feeling my dress stick to my skin. Forks is undergoing a summer heat wave, and everywhere is miserable. We don't have air conditioning; not that it would matter. There was a massive power outage all across town earlier this morning proabably due to overuse of air conditioners and fans, and the inside of the house is dark and warm.

The air outside is stubbornly refusing to cool with the setting sun, and as dusk settles, so does the thick layer of heat.

I am lying motionless in the thinnest summer dress I own. My parents are in Seattle with Livvy for a swim meet, lucky dogs, and I am left alone in the heat. The sweat beads on my skin, and with the sound of Quil's approaching footsteps I am drawn back in to the past.

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I left for nursing school of my own volition and suggestion. My parents wanted me to stay, go somewhere close to home. Instead, I went to Boston, visiting home only once in my two years away. I needed space.

I needed to get over Quil.

It all began early in my senior year of highschool. I was eighteen. The staples had long been removed from my head, and I had finally grown into my height. Although I will perhaps never be the definition of grace, I was functional and beautiful, and I finally knew it.

He had come over after school and tennis practice, and we were fooling around in the yard as usual. I had ignored any indications of changes in our relationship. Quil was such a familiar figure in my life, I still considered him as a brother or cousin-like figure. If I cherished a few memories where I made-believe his eyes held more than mere brotherly emotion, what of it? And if his face appeared in my dreams, they were, after all, beyond my control.

I still had my racket and he had pitched a couple balls at me in the yard. I, naturally, deliberately hit them all at him, and finally one landed, smacking him in the abdominals. He responded predictably, diving for my ankles with such speed that if I hadn't been anticipating exactly that response, and began to run right as the ball struck, I would have been a tumbling heap. Instead, I was sprinting to the left, and he missed, rolled, stood, and dove for me again.

He moved like lightning. I had managed to get about ten feet away from my original position and that in itself was a gigantic victory.

Quil hit my ankles and I started to go down, but as usual he somehow twisted as we fell, so that I landed almost softly, cushioned against him. When people were actually tackled they fell hard, heads smacking the ground. I always landed lightly as a feather, cradled almost delicately against Quil's chest.

It was a skill he had perfected as I had grown (though never near as tall or wide as him,) and I sometimes found myself irrationally wishing that he would stop treating my like a porcelain doll, and allow me to bang my head, or yell at me, or _something_.

I felt this tide of unfamiliar anger that day, and as we fell, jammed my elbow into his ribs. It bounced off, sore, but his nanosecond of surprise was enough for me to rip slightly out of his grip, falling partially on my shoulder.

"Ouch," I announced proudly, showing him the grass-stain on my T-shirt. "You're a brute."

Quil gave me a long, unwavering stare, and then burst into laughter. "That's a new one," he chuckled, and I jumped on him and started to pound him with my fists. "Help, oh, please, stop!" He cried mockingly, his only concession to my raining of blows to shield his face with his forearms.

"You," I muttered in between punches to his immoveable stomach and pectorals "are," he was still laughing "the worst," I finished, and he finally grabbed my hands.

"The worst?" He asked darkly, and suddenly we were flipped. I was pinned under him, and he was holding my arms lightly, but in a grip I knew would be impossible to break, should I attempt it.

"The worst," I affirmed, tilting my head to look into his eyes. A jolt went through me as I realized our situation. We had been like this a thousand times before, playing, wrestling, punching each other, and it was Quil's queue to begin tickling me until I begged for mercy. These thoughts passed through my mind in an instant, and then another sensation took over.

A curl of heat wound its way through my stomach, and I was abruptly aware of every point on our bodies where we were touching. His thighs clamed around me in a straddle, and he was lying above me, supporting himself on his elbows and he casually held my hands in a deadlock.

He was looking at me, with those unfathomable brown eyes. Did I see desire in them too, mirroring my own? Whatever the cause, we were both silent.

One of my hands broke from his unresisting one, and I brought it to his shoulder, sliding it along his neck in what could only be termed a caress. He froze under my touch, eyes darkening to reveal the rimming of gold around the pupil.

I sucked in a breath, but the tension between us was too thick to be broken, and my hand remained on his neck, directly over his carotid artery.

My eyes fluttered shut, and I pushed my chest and neck forwards, reclining my neck, and then, finally, brushed his lips with mine.

The kiss lasted barely longer than a second. I felt a vein pulse in his throat, just once, and then he was gone.

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Lying on the back deck, I felt the door slide open as his footsteps neared my position. I squeezed my eyes shut, against the heat and darkness, against the onslaught of memories that his nearness excited, against the pain and the anger and everything else besides.

But it was of no use, naturally, and I was thrown back into the past, into that painful moment, as rapidly as post-traumatic stress victims experienced flashbacks.

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I was lying, boneless and breathless, on the ground, alone. The cold I hadn't previously registered sunk in. The back of my T-shirt was damp.

Quil had gone, and there was no sign of him.

I didn't see him again for four months, and by then, I had already applied for nursing schools in California, determined to get over Quil Atera.

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"Claire?" I sit up at the sound of my name, still so unfamiliar coming from his mouth. I haven't seen him in two years.

He sucks in a breath, and I realize with chagrin that he looked exactly the same as always. Same soft black hair, same smooth brown skin, same bottomless chocolate eyes. In my more poetic days I used to compare Quil to an oak tree: broad, solid, dependable.

"Quil."

He comes and sits beside me, gracefully lowering himself into a cross-legged position. He is, of course, shirtless, and I hold my breath at his proximity. His presence excites the familiar mixture of longing and frustration, and I ache with the desire to lay my head against his shoulder like I would have when I was a child.

But children don't lie awake at night, sweating beyond what's merited by the temperature, dreaming about warm hands sliding over—

I cut off that line of thinking, but it was too late. The air crackles with heat and tension and something else besides, and I feel as if I were drowning, drowning in Quil.

"You're blushing," he comments.

"Am not," I retorts.

"Are too," he says, and grabs my chin. Warm hands turn my head, showing him both cheeks, as his piney, forest scent envelops me. "Are too, indeed."

I blush even more. "No I'm not," I snap. "I'm _flushed_, it's a million degrees out here."

"And in there," he says neutrally, nodding at the house.

I turn to look at him again. "Why would I be blushing, anyways?" I demand, the old hurt making my voice harsh.

He recoils as if I'd struck him. "No reason," he backpedals, but then looks closely at me, and I see that old-familiar mischief in his eyes. "Just, me being here shirtless and sweaty in this heat, so close to you—that wouldn't have anything to do with it, right?" He leans towards me a little bit, and I suppressed a gulp.

"Nope, nothing."

"And this," he edges forward some more, placing his hand on my calf. His voice deepened, and he flicks his eyes up towards mine, as the fateful word slides off his tongue like syrup. "Nervous?" He asks, and my heart begins to pound.

"Around you?" I choke out, determined to keep my dignity this time. It's been two years, and for God's sake, I am not a sex-starved animal, to melt in a puddle at Quil's feet. "Never."

His hands trail up my legs, reaching the hem of my pastel pink dress. "Little Flower," he breathes, "in a pretty pink dress, true to your name."

Any other time I would have laughed and shoved him, but my lips are glued shut, my entire body focused on the butterfly touches of his hands on my thighs. He slides his hands further up my dress, and I'm sweating again, but not from the heat. The material bunches around my hips, exposing my long, pale legs in direct contrast to his dark tan.

"Still nothing?" He queries. I lie back against the deck, trying to slow the racing of my heart. His hands trail further up the sensitive skin of my thigh, nearing the most sensitive place of all, and I find the words somehow.

"Not a thing."

He looks at me, those eyes I'll never understand boring into mine. His hand slips under the cotton band of my underwear, and I reach up to pull him over me, his body covering mine, and even with the heat I don't mind at all. Our stomachs mold together and electricity runs through me as he slips my underwear lower, then stops.

"Nervous?" I ask.

"Last chance," he whispers, lips hovering above mine. My arms slide further around his neck, hands sinking into his hair, and we both know I'll be making no protests.

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	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Thanks for the positive response! If there seems to be enough interest, I think I will continue this with one or two more chapters. I could do a few more flashbacks of their relationship, or just tie it up. Let me know!

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Little Flower

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In a different sort of way, Quil has always driven me crazy.

"Why are you here?" I would ask when I was younger, in the in-between stage when I no longer took him for granted, but before I acknowledged that a definition wouldn't really change things.

His answers varied. "I'm babysitting you, Ickle Bickle Flower," was common, but frequently untruthful, as one of my parents was generally around. "Because I'm your friend," also cropped up often. I liked that even less.

"But you're _old_!"

"Not that old."

"How old?" I demanded once. We were sitting on the family room floor, rolling about in the soft carpet. It was cold and rainy outside, and Quil had managed to convince my mother to build a fire. I was curled up with my stuffed animal, Wolfy, quite contentedly, and Quil lay on his stomach nearby, idly flipping through an old picture book of mine.

"Old enough, but not too old," he replied vaguely, and I huffed a sigh.

"Too old to be reading _The Berenstain Bears_," I decided, in a snotty tone that only a self-righteous nine year old could perfect.

He looked at me. "You're never too old for _The Berenstain Bears_," he said seriously.

"Are too!"

"Are not!"

I gave up on this line of thought. "So why _are_ you here, anyways? You're not too old for _The Berenstain Bears_, but you're old enough? Who are you? Where do you even live?"

He laughed, and even then I loved the sound. "So many questions Little Flower!" He exclaimed, grabbing me and tickling me until I shrieked for mercy and pounded him with my fists.

I lay on the carpet, gasping for breath, as he calmly returned to his book.

"_Quil_," I whined, letting my lower lip wobble ever-so-slightly.

He sighed, and there were years of exhaustion, pain, and impatience in that sigh. He turned his head, and for a moment his eyes seemed much older than the rest of his face. They held a strange acceptance—as though he hadn't wanted to enjoy this, hadn't wanted any of it, and it was tiring and brutal, playing with a nine year old girl when you were who-knows-how-much older, but it was the best thing that had ever happened to him, all the same.

"I'm someone who can't seem to stop coming back," he told me, and even though that wasn't really an answer, it was delivered so honestly and sincerely, in such a strange tone, that I couldn't bring myself to formulate a reply.

But I was only nine, after all, and so able to bounce back with an alarming rapidity. I scooted towards him on the floor until I was kneeling in front of him, pushing the book out of the way. "Do you love me?"

"Of course, Little Flower," he replied easily, but there was a flash of _something_ in his eyes that I stored away for later years.

"No." I looked at him seriously, my hands cradling his chin like a lover would. I stared at him, trying to understand. "Do you _love_ me?"

"Do you love _me_?" He rejoined, and I saw that he was momentarily almost vulnerable, as if the question had slipped out before he could bottle it up.

I cocked my head, considering it. "Not yet," I said with a sage wisdom characteristic of the age; nine is the age where you are almost grown, able to think, but before you grow too self-conscious to voice it. "You're my brother, right now," I muse, and Quil's face goes very still. "But I could."

"Well," he said, lying back down again to rest on his stomach and elbows. "When you do, ask me again."

I patted his head, messing up his silky hair. "It's okay. I already know that you do."

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"We shouldn't have done that." Quil's voice echoes in my mind and all the things we shouldn't have done blur together, until I am no longer sure which instance he was referring to.

He is standing, facing the house, the broad, bare expanse of his back shimmering with sweat in the eerie half-light. The muscles around his neck are tense, and I restrain myself from going to him. I'm twenty now, not a love-sick seventeen year old, and I have finally gained a modicum of self control.

"What shouldn't we have done?" I snap, smoothing my dress down, erasing the memories, storing them in a compartment to be opened and sorted through later, when he is gone. "Grown up together? Kissed? Separated? Screwed? The list goes on, Quil, so enlighten me." The air between us is thick with heat and tension, as the haziness seems to press down on the porch, engulfing us in a vast silence of thick air.

"Claire," he turns, and his face is a mask—of what: pain, anger? I gave up trying to decipher him long ago. "There's so much you don't understand."

I stand up, feeling the fury begin to tingle through my veins and erase that other feeling, shame. I embrace the anger, letting all other emotions vanish in its ferocity, and feel the sweat break out on my arms. "Well then why don't you _explain_, Quil. Or you could leave like you did before, that works, too."

It's definitely hurt that I see flicker across his eyes, just briefly, before he schools his face to neutral once more. He is sweating too, a light sheen across his chest, and I drag my eyes away; the heat is making me crazed, as my nerve endings trill with an unknown fire.

"Claire," he repeats, and his tone is calm, patronizingly so. But I am spoiling for a fight, and I am tired of the big-brother bullshit that I know he is about to pull.

"You can't do_ that_ anymore," I say, and my tone begins to build toward yelling. "I'm not your _sister_, Quil," I spit, and now I'm well and truly shouting, "you don't _do that_ with your sister, so you need to get _over_ yourself and _grow up_!" I feel myself flushing from my outburst, and the sweat runs down my lower back. But it's a cold sweat this time, so different from the heated limbs and sighs of earlier.

"Don't do this to me," he grates out, and I see a muscle tick in his jaw. "You have no idea."

"Then give me an idea!" I shriek, and everything's lost. My pride and dignity are thrown to the shelf as I run at this man (he is a man, now, I realize belatedly, we are all of us grown up) and grab his face between my hands. The air surrounds us, oppressive, and after my outburst I feel as though I am slowly suffocating.

"Why?" I whisper, all anger leaving me at the contact. "Why, Quil? Why now, why this?"

I look into his eyes and he is a million years old. The pain affronts me, hitting me in the stomach like a blow, and I suddenly feel nauseous. He holds my gaze, and I realize this is a window; a side of him that he's never showed me before, never let me see. I'm gasping with electricity and pain and rage, so many emotions that I feel like I'm about to explode. The heat of the night presses down on me, the only thing keeping me together. I can feel the moisture on my skin.

I've never been emotional, never been one to cry or faint or mope, and now I'm swamped, uncontrollable, consumed. It's as if I've just taken a bath with a hairdryer.

I take a deep breath and he breathes with me, synchronizing our exhale, and as my knees buckle he reaches out an arm to catch me in the armpit. He stares at his arm as if it's no longer attached to him as his hand slides down my side in a trail of heat so different from the thick air, to settle in the curve of my waist.

"I think…" I say, in a different tone, now, "I'm beginning to understand." And with this perception, and Quil's hand on my waist, comes the knowledge of my advantage.

I step forward, pressing myself completely against him, and he shudders once, but doesn't move. My hands move forward of their own volition, slipping through his hair to rest at the nape of his neck.

"Claire, no," he murmurs against my lips as he kisses me, but it was he who had lowered his lips to mine. His hands betray him, fingers running through my hair, and it is my turn to shudder, deliciously encased in his arms.

"Don't," he whispers again, helpless.

But my hands are cupping his face, and his elegant fingers find my hips, pulling me closer.

I do.

His breath is rough as we tumble to the wood of the porch for the second time that day, and he kisses me with a kind of desperation, like a dying man. His hands memorize every line and curve of my body, like a lover, and I wonder.

This time he is less gentle, less slow. My legs wrap around his waist, and I gasp as he kisses the sensitive skin where my neck meets shoulder, biting down slightly and sucking. He moves onwards, following the line of my collarbone, and he must know that I am equally helpless in his arms.

I grit my teeth, unwilling to wantonly moan, but as his lips move downwards all resolutions are abandoned. I feel more sweat breaking out all over my skin, as the heat I had previously forgotten about returns full force, and I let myself melt, melting into his touch and his grip, covered by his skin and lips and teeth.

He stands again when we finish, and I wonder if he is not the type to cuddle, or if this is simply too much for him, too much, too fast. He peels himself off of me, as our drenched bodies stick together, _entwined like our souls, _I think to myself, and the skin finally separates with a suction-y pop.

It certainly is too much for me, but I feel softer now, less angry, and more curious. There are things occurring beneath the surface, and the truth I unknowingly stumbled upon when I was nine haunts me.

"Quil." I'm at least ten feet away from him, as he stands across the deck, watching me. It is surreal, this situation, and the words float from my lips with the ease that comes from surrender. "You love me," I say, and it's only half a question. I am surprisingly numb, uncaring of the answer. Probably because I know his response, have known his response, have been ready for this moment for a number of years.

"Yes," he replies. The "but" following it goes unsaid, but it is implied. I raise my eyebrow, uncaring of the fact that he may not be able to see, in this light, from so far away. A trickle of sweat falls down my temple, and I brush it away.

"I think," I begin, and the calmness encases me, the calm after the storm, and I suddenly understand that whatever happens, there are things between us, things that need to be said. "You should sit down," I finish slowly, gently, kindly, and he nears me like a frightened animal, finally sinking gracefully to the wood beside me.

My head falls into his lap, as it would when I was a child, when we were both children, in my mind, and when nothing mattered more than his warm hands and his smile, the way he called me Little Flower, and the way his laugh would echo in my mind. His hands automatically begin to stroke my hair, separating the flaxen locks, and we both sigh, as something in the world rights itself, and he begins to talk.

"I don't know, Little Flower," he says, and the nickname is familiar, like an old favorite dress, and I try it on, finding that it fits comfortable, despite the rip in the hem from excessive usage. "I don't know exactly how much you know, and I had hoped, I suppose, hoped against hope, to never really have to explain it to you. I suppose you must know some, and what you don't know you must have guessed."

"_I'm someone who can't seem to stop coming back_," I quote to him from my position in his lap, and looking up, I see him nod.

"You know I'm not quite…like everyone else." It's my turn to nod. I've known Quil for a long time, and he has never told me anything much. But like he said, it was enough. "There is something special that occurs sometimes, to people…like me…" He pauses again, and there is a foreboding in his tone. "Something that, we are often very reluctant to believe…or accept." He strokes my hair, looking off in to the distance, and I know he is seeing memories that I cannot share.

"Do you remember, how I was, when you were very young?"

"You were kind," I say slowly. "And you were always there."

"But I was angry," he replies, corroborating. "Angry, and in pain."

I nod again. "You loved me, even then."

"Even then," he agrees, his voice barely more than a whisper. "Even then." He clears his throat. "The reason for it, was, that these emotions did not always feel like ours to control."

The way he says this makes me tense, and I am suddenly suspended from the narrative, the heat once more pressing on me from all sides, making me aware of how sweaty and sticks I am, and the satisfied ache in my pelvic region. I shift uncomfortably, and Quil looks down.

"I was fighting it. All the time I spent with you, every time I came over, every time I came back, I was resisting myself. I didn't want it, but I couldn't help it." I stay absolutely still. "And then… three years ago, when you kissed me. I realized that I couldn't live without you."

"But Claire, you have to understand. I couldn't—_won't_—do that to you. I've been here all your life, because of…other things… and I'm all you know. I won't let you sacrifice your life for me. I kept hoping when you went away that you'd meet someone else, start a new life, _have_ a life. Don't you see? I have to give you that opportunity."

We lie there, and I allow his words to sink in, like the heat and the dirt and the sweat. I have always loved him, and I know that now. Perhaps, some may even argue, I was always _destined_ to love him, but that means very little to me, so I ignore it (for now).

He, too, loves me, and has always accepted it, yet for a chivalrous reason feels compelled to deny us happiness. I suppress the bolt of anger this summons, acknowledging that he has his rationale, however idealistic. This leaves us at a stalemate, I decide. I will not be able to convince him with words alone, and unless deliberately provoked, he is unwilling to relent.

He has, I realize, never had to fight for me. Perhaps he has even taken me for granted. I have always come to him.

I stand up, shaking out my hair. "That's lovely, Quil," I say, and there is ice in my tone, but not an excessive amount. I brush my dress, feeling the cool air caress my sweaty legs like fingers. "It's a nice sentiment, and if I didn't love you, then it might even be noble." I fixed him with a steely glare. "Since I do, (and it's nobodies fault but your own,) it's really just plain cruel, but I know how stubborn you are."

He straightens his legs out in front of him, leaning back on his palms and sighing. I place one foot on either side of him, lowering myself so that I am straddling him, and he looks up in something very close to shock. I find myself rejoicing in this newfound power.

I place a hot kiss on the side of neck, and he tilts his head back, eyes shut, exhaling heavily, and then I stand up.

"So what you want for me is great, but that's not what I want. And when you finally figure it out, you know where to find me."

My parting words are somewhat ruined by the glint in my eye, the breathlessness of my tone, and the sweat suddenly coating my chest. But I see him blink in acknowledgment, and so I saunter into my house, slamming the glass door shut behind me.

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	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Short and sweet! If there's enough interest, I'll throw up the epilogue tomorrow. Please review and let me know what you think!

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**Little Flower**

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It's been another year. It's summer: mid-August now, and I'm returning to Seattle soon for my final year of the college and nursing school conglomeration. The moist heat is starting to fade, replaced by a slightly drier autumn. But the hint of damp hangs in the air, and the evening are chilly. There are bonfires and barbecues on the beach, and the old Quiluete legends are being told. I do not attend.

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"He's been calling, you know," mom told me.

There was no need to explain who _he_ was; there was no other boy who would call me so repeatedly and consistently. You could set a watch by it. It was two weeks after the heat wave, after I left him on the porch, after the image of us locked together, with sweat running down his arms as I throw my head back and gasped for air, remained, burned in to my mind.

"I know," I replied. I was lying on my bed, head tilted toward the floor so that my hair streamed over the edge in a wheaten waterfall. In my mind's eye I could see Quil running his hand through the water, sifting through the strands, but I banished the image.

Quil's absence was like an ache in my heart. I had thought, over the time that I'd been gone—two years—that I had accustomed myself to the lack of his presence. But Quil to me was oxygen, I breathed him like air, and in his absence I could feel myself slowly suffocating to death in the nitrogen-filled atmosphere.

"Claire," my mother said, and I felt the mattress depress as she sat down, patting my leg. "What happened between you two?" I could hear the concern in her voice. She loved Quil, but she loves me more, and that was a small victory in my heart. "You can talk to me, you know."

I didn't know that, have never known that; I've never confided in my mother and this seemed an awkward place to start. Quil, it had always been Quil, he has been my best friend and confidante since ever, literally, and his absence was akin to missing a limb, as I was beginning to realize.

Because what happened before was nothing compared to this.

Because that was potentially mutual, and I was angry, and then I was away.

Because now I was here, and he was here, and we had been _so_ _close_ to perfection that it _hurts_ to think about it, that night on the porch.

Because the _pain_ was _real_, and it was _my fault_, but it was too late now, there's _no turning back_, not now, not ever, and so I did the only thing I can.

I left, again, and it turns out I'm pretty good at running away too, maybe almost as good as Quil.

0000

He knows I am back. He knows that I have avoided coming back, until now, until the end of summer, when the heat is gone along with the memories. It is cooler and calmer, and I am older now, and I feel it. I have stopped growing on the surface, settling into my features with a grace I didn't know I had, allowing my unexpected maturity to cloak me.

I have done well at nursing school, beginning to create an identity for myself that does not involve anyone from home. I stand straighter, walk with more purpose, hold my head slightly higher. My professors assure me that I will have _options_ when I graduate, options for jobs and where to work. I can go _anywhere_, they say, and the word rings strangely in my mind.

But I feel hollow. Sadness is an oppressive weight, and despite it all, I do not heal.

_Little Flower,_ the letter begins, and I throw it away and do not respond.

"_Hey, Flo, it's me_,_"_ his voice on the answering machine begins, and the _beep_ when I delete it seems long in comparison.

Someone is pounding on the door. "Open the GODDAMN DOOR, CLAIRE!" Quil's voice booms through the empty house, rising in volume with each word. "I _know_ you're in there!" I rise unwillingly from my bed, where I am again sitting, allowing my hair to hang around me in a waterfall of golden memories, awash with Quil's face. I contemplate cutting it short, hacking it off as a physical representation of how I am metaphorically trying to excise Quil from my life.

I slowly trek down the stairs to the front door, and see his shadowy form pressed up against the glass windows on either side of the frame.

"What?" I ask, ungraciously, throwing the door open. My hair is loose and messy from hanging off my bed, but thankfully clean, and I tilt my face forward, allowing it to fall around me like a curtain, hoping it will help to conceal my emotions.

No such luck. His hands reach for me, smoothing the white-blonde strands back, pulling my chin up. "You missed me too," he breathes. Is that relief in his voice?

It is as if no time has passed at all. His feather-light touch sends tingles down my spine, and I have taken an involuntary step further into his grip before I even realize it. "Don't be so sure, Old Wolf," I drawl at him, and he looks at me in shock. It's always fun for me when I can clearly register an emotion on his face, when the eyes that are normally so resistant to interpretation broadcast a comprehensible message. His eyes widen as he inhales, darkening rapidly as his face goes slack with fear.

I smile slightly, against my will. I feel the corner of my eyes crinkle. "You really thought I didn't know." My smile turns into a self-deprecating smirk. "I'm not _that_ stupid."

Quil is still apparently speechless, but after this he manages to exhale slowly, with his eyes returning to their deep, ambiguous brown. His hand twitches, and he brings it to my arm, rubbing it up and down my bicep. His thumb draws patters on my skin, as the other fingers reach around to knead my tricep. This simple gesture of brotherly affection has me trembling, mouth dry, breath coming in quick pants, as I look at him, trying to determine how he will react.

Finally, bemused, he laughs. "How long have you known?" He asks, and his deep, rich voice throbs with affection.

"Since I was six."

He raises an eyebrow, surprised again, but less so. "Why?" A few questions echo within, and I decide to answer them all.

"I saw you," I explain. "I saw you as a wolf in the woods, and I watched you change. All the old legends, with Sam and everyone—it wasn't hard to put two and two together when I got a little older. I wasn't scared, because I was so young, I just accepted it. And it was obviously private, so I didn't mention it. I knew you would have told me if you wanted to talk about…" I trail off, and shrug.

"I figured you had somehow known… That I was slightly different. But that could have meant everything." He pauses. "So what I said to you last year… You don't really understand what I was talking about?"

I shrug again. "I have a couple ideas, but nothing definite, no."

He takes a deep breath and I, guessing at what's coming, start to move away. He grabs my forearm, fingers sliding down the skin until they reach my hand. With a deft movement, he entwines our fingers, and I am effectively trapped.

"I'm tired of running," he whispers, pulling me against him so that he can rest his chin on my head, and whisper into my hair. I shiver at the proximity and he wraps an arm around me, holding me. "I can't fight this anymore, Claire."

I don't resist the urge to prod him. "So I was right?"

He sighs, and I feel it tickle the top of my head. And then he is pulling my face up toward his, and I am completely breathless.

"I can't predict the future," he says. "I can't promise that this is going to be alright, that it's always going to be alright, that our destiny is to be together."

"But," I say, and his eyes sparkle.

"But right now," he quirks one of his lips, in a lopsided half-smile that makes my heart pound, "the future doesn't matter anymore."

And then he is finally, _finally_ kissing me, in a knee-weakening way, and the moment his lips touch mine it is like coming home.

00000


	4. Epilogue

A/N: Sooo cheesy but I couldn't help it guys, I just couldn't. Enjoy.

0000

**Epilogue**

0000

"KEEP THEM AWAY FROM HER!" Mother is shouting, a blood-curdling shriek that makes the skin on my neck tingle in pain.

We moved to Forks because grandma on my Mother's side is very ill, and she's going to live with us now. I've just turned ten, so Mother says that I'm a big girl, and can help out. Grandma is going to be like a baby, Mother says, with diapers and everything.

We've just unpacked the last box, and so I guess Dad has invited his old school friends over to celebrate. I was visiting Grandpa and Grandma, since they're not moved in yet, but Grandma's hip is bothering her so he drove me home early.

I just walked in, and Dad came to say hi. His friends are all like him, tan and brown, with weathered faces and strong hair. They gleam with a sort of youthful exuberance, and I want to meet them all. Uncle Jacob is there, whom I already know. He would come visit us in Seattle sometimes, where Mother worked as a nurse. And sometimes when Dad took trips, he'd bring Uncle Jacob back with him.

I wonder why I've never met the rest of them before, and why Mother is running out of the kitchen, holding a butcher's knife and looking wild.

It's too late, of course, I've already entered the living room, shaking hands with several of the older men. One boy comes up to me, and he's definitely not old enough to be one of Dad's friends, he looks like a high schooler, maybe eighteen but probably not even that.

"Hey," he says. "I'm Seth."

And then I'm falling through empty space, the black walls of the universe pressing down from all sides, in a crazy windmill that might be more accurately called careening. Stars explode and I finally force my eyes back open, to find myself staring back at Seth. His eyes are curiously hazel-tinted, with greeny-gold flecks throughout the brown, and I sink into them as easily as I sank into the void.

He is looking at me with a strange expression, an expression probably similar to mine, and I offer him a timid smile. He smiles back at me, and I find myself taking a step back, running to hug mother despite the knife, wishing I were smaller so I could hide behind her legs. Something in his smile scared me, hinted at things I wasn't ready to deal with yet.

Mother hands her knife to Dad, glaring at him and Seth with an expression that says she'd rather be using it to gut them, and wraps her arms around me.

"It's okay, sweetie," she says, patting my hair, and then looks at Dad.

"Quil Atera, I am going to _kill you_."

Dad simply smiles, leaning forward to peck her on the cheek, toying with a strand of her hair. "Oh, Little Flower," he murmurs. "Would you really have it any other way?"


End file.
